The References Tab is a disappointment in MS Word. In theory, it could be very useful, but there are many problems which make this feature set almost unusable. For example, in the MLA style, very specific formatting (font, font size, line spacing, indents, etc.) are required, but the MS Word citations break most of these rules. Another example is that there are dozens of different citation forms, but this tab in MS Word only allows a few of them. Many students use Online Library Subscriptions in order to find a variety of articles for researching an essay--but MS Word's Citation feature cannot produce this. As a result, using this feature would create far more problems than it is worth.
When making citations, please follow your style guide (MLA, APA, etc.) and create the citations yourself.
"Mailings" are for specific business uses. If you have a letter you wish to send by "snail mail," or paper letters in envelopes, this feature would help you create dozens, hundreds, or thousands of copies of that letter. If you have an address book with many different recipients, "Mailings" can insert each person's name, address, and other specific information inside a "form" letter, and then print envelopes as well.
Because this is an advanced business feature, we will not learn it in this class.
The next tab in the Ribbon is the Review tab.
Proofing: In this area, you can access Spell check, Dictionaries, Thesauruses, Encyclopedias, Multilingual dictionaries/translations, and Word Count.
The Spell Check is self-explanatory, and is duplicated in the status bar (on the left side, next to the Word Count).
Most of the rest is mostly one feature: the "Research" pane:
As you can see in its drop-down menu, the dictionary, thesauruses, encyclopedia, translation, and other resources are all available through here; clicking on the various Ribbon buttons simply take you to the same place.
There are several excellent resources available, but the most useful to language students is the multilingual dictionary. The English dictionary, thesaurus and encyclopedia will be useful to students in general:
The remaining "Proofing" buttons include:
- Translation Screentip: allows for a translation to appear in a floating text box when the mouse is hovered over a word. However, the number of languages is limited.
- Set Language: allows you to tell MS Word which language any text is; if you use a French expression in an English document, for example, you can tell MS Word that it is French so Word will not think it is misspelled.
- Word Count: Just like in the status bar, you can click this to see a count of characters, words, paragraphs, etc.
Comments: Leave and review comments for people who view this document at a different time and place. The idea is similar to PowerPoint, but different in how it is displayed. The buttons look the same...
However, if you select some text and make a comment, it looks like this:
As you can see, the selected text is highlighted, and the comment is displayed in an extra margin on the right; the two are connected by a line.
Many people do not like this layout, however. There are ways to change it. For example, if you click on the "Show Markup" button and change it to "Final," then turn on the "Vertical Reviewing Pane," the comments will appear in a separate section in the window.
The other two sections we will not look at in this class:
- Tracking – Changes – Compare: These are advanced features for "collaboration," where several different people make changes to a document over a period of time.
- Protect: Gives different users different permissions to read or change the document.
The final tab in the Ribbon is the View tab.
- Document Views: We learned these in the first chapter, when we looked at the Status Bar.
- Show/Hide: See below.
- Zoom: See below.
- Window: Mostly the same as in PowerPoint; a few extra features are outlined below.
- Macros: An advanced feature, we talked about it in PowerPoint.
SHOW/HIDE:
- Ruler: Turns the Ruler on and off.
- Gridlines: creates a gray grid behind the text body; used for aligning objects (see illustration at right).
- Message Bar: Advanced feature; disregard.
- Document Map: Advanced feature; disregard.
- Thumbnails: Allows a view similar to PowerPoint's "Slide Sorter," where you can see small images of every page. See illustration below.
ZOOM:
- Zoom (button): Opens a Zoom dialog box (see image at right). It is much easier just to use the Zoom slider in the Status Bar.
- 100%: Shows the paper in "real" size. If the representation is correct, then this is exactly what you would see if you held the printed version of the document in front of your computer screen.
- One Page: Zooms out so that one whole page is just completely visible within the screen.
- Two Pages: Zooms out so that two whole pages are just completely visible within the screen.
- Page Width: Zooms in/out so that the edges of the "piece of paper" fit within the window on your screen.
WINDOW:
- New Window: Shows the same document in a second window. If your screen is big enough, you could then view two windows showing one document side-by-side, like a different type of Split screen.
- Arrange: Takes all open MS Word windows and arranges them so all are of equal sizes, and all are fully visible.
- Split: Turns on the Split screen view, as we reviewed in "The Ruler" section of "MS Word Basics."
- View Side by Side: Arranges two document windows so one fills the left side of your screen, and the other fills the right side.
- Synchronous Scrolling: Used with "View Side by Side," this makes both documents scroll together at the same time.
- Reset Window Position: When viewing Side by Side, you might decide to resize one or both windows unequally; this will reset the windows so they are equal again.
- Switch Windows: Makes a different MS Word document active. For example, if you have two documents open in MS Word at the same time, and you are looking at "Document 1," this button allows you to switch to "Document 2."
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